


Dinner with the Michaelsons

by TwinIvoryElephants



Category: The Boy Who Could Fly (1986)
Genre: 1980s, Domestic Fluff, Family Dinners, Period Typical Attitudes, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:26:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25193902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwinIvoryElephants/pseuds/TwinIvoryElephants
Summary: Eric is somehow roped into helping Milly make spaghetti for dinner.
Relationships: Eric Gibb/Milly Michaelson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Dinner with the Michaelsons

Eric didn’t know how he got roped into making dinner. He didn’t want to—he was planning to browse the shopping catalogue on the Michaelsons’ coffee table to see if there were any airplane kits or photos of flying things, in fact—but Milly told him to join her by the stove.

“This’ll be good for you,” she told him, grabbing his hand and placing his fingers around the dial. “Turn it like this.” She guided his hand. Eric’s ears perked up at the stove dial’s rapid clicking. When blue flames suddenly flared up on the empty burner, he jolted. “It’s okay,” Milly told him, turning the dial the other way, fingers pressing firmly on his own. The flames died down to a low simmer.

“See? Now we can put the pot on it.” Eric took his hand away, looking at the burner. He didn’t want to mess with it anymore. It made him uneasy. The flames were so small and blue and hot; they were unpredictable.

Milly turned off the burner with an expert flick of her wrist, then bent over to retrieve something from a cabinet. Eric began to move away from the kitchen, but soon she called him back again. He turned stiffly around. Milly, seeing his slumped shoulders, hefted a large metal pot onto the stove and said with a knowing grimace, “Don’t worry. I don’t like it either. But at least if you help me, we can be miserable together.”

Eric was finally able to page through the catalogue once the pot was filled with water and the burner turned on. Milly had tried to get him to do it without her guiding him, but the dial felt as foreign as it had the first time he’d put his hand on it. When he hesitantly turned the dial just as Milly told him, and the clicking increased, and the blue flames rose up, he jolted away again. 

“Don’t keep it on high,” she warned, but when she tried to get him to touch the dial again, he refused. The fire made him nervous; there didn’t seem to be any detectable pattern in how it worked. He wanted Milly to take care of it. That was safer, surely. Eric shied away, looking at her meaningfully. Milly set her jaw. “Okay, then,” she said, “you’ll help me break up the spaghetti.”

While they waited for the water to boil, Eric sat at the kitchen counter and hunched over the catalogue while Milly did homework beside him. He turned the pages slowly, looking at each printed photo briefly before turning his attention to the next one. He wanted more pictures to add to the collage on his bedroom wall.

It was important work, which is why Eric found the hissing, muffled noise of the boiling water irritating. He lifted his head and stared at the lid atop the pot. Then he leaned over to nudge Milly, who was resting her hand on her cheek and looking hopelessly at her homework. 

She shook out a handful of spaghetti noodles and handed it to him. Eric held it over the pot, felt the heat waft up to brush his knuckles. He looked up to avoid the steam, which threatened to make his eyes water. Milly hovered behind him, her hands reaching to help him break the bundle of hard pasta. Eric let her hands alight on the backs of his hands and allowed her fingers to bear down on his own. She put more and more pressure on his skin until he tightened his grip. Eric blinked, keeping his eyes on the fluorescent kitchen light. “Come on, Eric,” Milly grunted. “Break it.”

Eric grimaced at the ceiling, his wrists trembling briefly with effort. Then, there was a crack, and the halved noodles tumbled into the pot with a soft, watery hiss. 

“Good!” Milly cried. Eric wondered if she would let him return to the catalogue. But she made him break apart another few fistfuls of spaghetti, repetitive, like clockwork. When she finally let him go, he grabbed the catalogue and went into the living room. Milly followed. “Hey, don’t be mad,” she said, taking his free hand. Eric withdrew from her grasp, irritated, and sat on the couch. Louis was lying on the carpet, playing a video game. Max, lying beside him, raised his head from his paws once he saw Eric and Milly enter. 

“Is dinner ready?” asked Louis, eyes glued to the television screen. “I’m starving.”

“No,” Milly replied, nestling beside Eric on the couch. He hunched his shoulders a little in response. “We just put the pasta in.”

Louis gave a sigh, moving the joystick on his Atari controller without enthusiasm. Onscreen, his starship dodged a few alien projectiles, only to be hit by one at the last minute.

The Sears catalogue did not have any airplane kits, Eric discovered after scanning each page. It only had clothes. He tossed it aside, resigned. Milly picked it up and began flicking through it. “What were you doing?” she teased. “Looking for a new sweater?”

Eric reclined on the couch. Milly did the same. For the next few minutes, the only sounds in the room were the electronic beeps and boops from Louis’s game and the rustling of magazine pages. He looked idly at the ceiling.

At home, Eric was alone all the time. This wasn’t a bad thing, from his perspective—he could do whatever he wanted. He could, in the wee hours of the morning, stand on rooftops in his bare feet with his toes curled around the rough brick as he looked up into the cold graying sky. No one told him what to do, except when his uncle occasionally woke from his drunken, bleary state enough to cook him something hot to eat or take him to the institute or make him brush his teeth. It was a pleasant feeling, being alone. It was better than being with people, who always confused or irritated him with their demands.

Sitting on the couch with Milly, though...that was a different feeling. A nice feeling. Eric didn’t feel prickly, despite her sitting close enough that he could feel her hipbone press lightly against his through the fabric of both their jeans. 

Suddenly, Milly jolted up. “We gotta stir it now,” she told Eric, offering him a hand. He took it, and she pulled him to his feet. “I always let it sit too long without stirring,” she added, almost apologetically, as they re-entered the kitchen. “Then it gets stuck at the bottom of the pot.”

Eric just blinked as she got out a wooden spoon and began to stir. She made him try soon after, guiding his hands and holding his wrist. He looked up at the ceiling the whole time, nostrils twitching, trying to avoid the wafting steam. 

The only good thing about helping Milly was the fact that, once she’d deemed the spaghetti soft enough, Eric was allowed to taste them alongside her. She delicately balanced a lone noodle on the edge of her spoon, pinched it between her index finger and thumb, and gave it to Eric. It tasted rubbery but chewy, and was just warm enough to whet his appetite.

“I think it’s okay,” decided Milly. She gave the noodles a cursory rotation with her wooden spoon, then glanced at Eric. “What do you think?”

They ended up letting the pasta simmer for a few minutes more. Eric was thankful that Milly didn’t make him tip the spaghetti into the metal bowl with holes—she called it a “strainer”—that was sitting in the sink.

By the time the spaghetti was ready, Eric felt excitement start to build. It’d been a while since he’d had anything hot to eat. He flapped his hands for a moment as Milly set the table with bowls and forks. She grinned at him. “Can you go get Louis, please?” 

Eric went obediently into the living room. Louis looked at him. “Is dinner ready?” he asked.

Eric blinked at him.

Louis got up with a sigh.

“Why couldn’t _you_ come and get me?” he grumbled to his sister as he walked into the dining room, Eric close behind.

“‘Cause I’m setting the table,” replied Milly, setting out napkins. She gave her brother a look that Eric couldn’t quite decipher. “Did you feed Max?”

Louis ran out the door to the backyard, Max at his heels.

Eric wasn’t used to all the bustle around the Michaelsons’ house, but it didn’t bother him, to his own surprise. He was used to the lonely shuffling of his uncle’s slippers and the beeps and hum of the microwave on good days. On bad days, he was used to the crackle of plastic as he tried to open the loaf of bread in the pantry, or the crinkle of tinfoil as he unwrapped the bars of dark chocolate his uncle kept on a high shelf. But hearing Milly talk with Louis and the clink of silverware and dishes as she readied the table made him realize that this was the well-worn routine of a family. That was something Eric had never known. Hearing it made him feel both happy and strangely sad as he sat at the table and watched Milly bring out the bowl of spaghetti and the smaller bowl of its corresponding sauce. 

“Don’t listen to Louis,” Milly told him, sitting in the chair beside him. “He’s just being an ass ‘cause of his teacher’s latest note.” She lowered her voice and added, confidentially, “I don’t get why he can’t just do what he’s told.”

Louis trudged back in the dining room. When he saw everything set out on the table, his eyes lit up and he raced over. Milly jumped up and grabbed the big spoon perched against the rim of the bowl of spaghetti just before he could reach it. “Nuh huh,” she snapped. “We’re waiting for Mom. Come on, Louis, why do you even try anymore?”

“I can’t help it,” he whined, sitting down at the opposite end of the table. “I’m starving to death. Where the hell _is_ she?”

They didn’t have to wait long; Mrs. Michaelson entered the house shortly with a long-winded complaint about work. She greeted him briefly. Eric didn’t look up from the table. Milly’s mother always looked at him oddly. It was an expression that was easy to recognize after years of exposure—it was a precursor to the inevitable embarrassment and anxiety that came when he did something weird. After years of adults looking at him in that same nervous way, Eric was tired of seeing it on people’s faces—especially the face of Milly’s mother. Milly herself almost never looked at him that way, except for when Mona and her friends were around. 

Milly spooned spaghetti into his bowl. She offered him sauce, but Eric shook his head. The taste of the soft, rubbery noodles mixed with the lumpy, oozing sauce made him shiver. It was so terrible—as disorienting as clanging bells mixed with the shriek of a fire alarm.

Dinner began after Milly sat down again. Eric quietly absorbed the Michaelsons’ conversation, letting their words wash over him. It surprised him—they talked so much! They did it in such an easy, lackadaisical manner, too. Like clockwork, they talked for a little while, went silent as they ate, then started up again a few moments later. Eric liked that—it was an easy, predictable rhythm to tune into, even if he wasn’t really acknowledged by anyone involved—even Milly. He didn’t mind, though. He just liked to listen. 

At home, all he had to listen to was his uncle’s snoring or the empty chatter of the television, if Eric wanted to turn it on. Then there was the chirping of birds in the morning and crickets at night, punctuated by the occasional sound of cars driving by. He liked it that way; it was better than the noise of school, anyway. But this was nice—being with Milly and her family. It felt like being apart of something.

And the spaghetti was good, too.


End file.
